Simon Sebag Montefiore’s moreish chronicle is laced with sex and violence
Between the great, the good, the damned and the merely incompetent or criminal, there are far too many stars to mention. But some stand out:
• Liu Bang was a hard-drinking peasant nicknamed “Little Rascal” who became a warlord. Through clever generalship and enlightened politics, he founded the Han dynasty in 202• Aged 56, and still exceptionally beautiful, Empress Zoe, niece of Basil the Bulgar-Slayer, drowned her husband Romanos in his bath in 1034 with the help of a 25-year-old paramour. Despite a brief exile, Zoe was kingmaker and the real power in Constantinople until her death 16 years later.
A perennial theme is the dynastic problem caused by having too many sons, who fight each other for the throne—a difficulty exacerbated by the sensual temptations afforded by absolute power. For instance, Ismail, a slave-trading sultan of Morocco, fathered 1,171 children by the time he died in 1727. As Nizam al-Mulk, an 11th-century vizier, observed: “One obedient slave is better than 300 sons for the latter desire their father’s death, the former their master’s glory.
Belgique Dernières Nouvelles, Belgique Actualités
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